A Bill to Harness Draconian HMOs

Updated June 28, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

In regard to your June 21 editorial "Patients' Right to Sue": The suggestion that we in the United States, and the Democratic Party in particular, "believe that no private institution will act in good faith absent the possibility of being torn to pieces by a law suit" is fallacious. The HMO-health insurance industry is the only one in this country protected from accountability by act of Congress (Erisa, 1974). Doctors, hospitals, corporations and every entity can be held accountable in court.